Rescue
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: Five times Eliot had to save himself. One time he didn't have to.


**A/n:** so continuing with this thing I seem to have for torturing Eliot…

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**Rescue**

The first time Eliot had been forced to save himself he'd been about eight, maybe nine. He didn't know for sure anymore but it was after his older brother had left home so he couldn't of been much younger than that. He'd been walking home from school by himself, something his brother had always made sure he never had to do, when the two sons of the family his mom had been working for to pull in a bit of extra money to their failing farm had ridden by on their fancy new mountain bikes.

His dad was big about pride and holding your head up. Nothing shameful to be said about workin' the dirt with all you had. Nothing shameful about nature providing hardships and getting by however you can. As long as there was food on the table for your kids and they had a bit of land to be their inheritance someday you'd done your bit. Eliot's father had always told him that he should be proud of their family and let no one tell him otherwise.

But it was hard, when those boys on their bright blue bikes rode back teasing him in sing song voices about his mother. It bothered him, even if he didn't understand the grown up taunts they were making until years later. He knew not to let them provoke him, they had tried before, but something in him just snapped.

The next time they rode by he'd rolled under the fence and started throwing rocks at them, calling them every name he knew and a few he made up. After they realized they couldn't get at him on the other side of the fence with their bikes they'd hopped off and chased after him. He'd run like a bat out of hell, but the corn was only waist high even on him and he couldn't loose them in the rows. By the time they'd caught up with him he was in the middle of nowhere with no one to stop the beating.

Two black eyes, his first lost baby tooth, and a broken arm later he'd been left alone in the field, tied up with some twine they'd found so they could go lock their bikes safely and come back for him for a second round.

Eliot hadn't given them a chance. His brother hadn't had time to teach him much but keeping your head in a sticky situation had been one lesson learned. His arm hurt like hot irons inside his skin but the brothers had tied his hands loosely in front of him and Eliot managed to get his mouth to the knot and pull it undone. His hands free made getting his legs untied easy, the brothers didn't know a thing about knots it seemed. Without letting himself savor the small victory Eliot was off at a run toward home.

Later he'd find out the boy's bikes had been stolen and their parents refused to buy them new ones because they'd been careless. It was the first time Eliot really understood the concept of stealing and maybe the ironic justice in it was some kind of omen if you were into that sort of thing.

Eliot was nineteen the second time. The bank had long since taken the farm. His dad had shot himself their last night before they had to leave. His mom had never been the same and his little sister was sent to live with their uncle in Oklahoma City. Eliot had taken care of himself through high school, working in a local stable four hours a day after school and longer on weekends kept food on the table and gave him a taste of that old pride his father had taught him about. Hard work burned away anger and regret and gave him time to figure it out and come away from it somewhat undamaged.

His love of horses helped too.

No one had been surprised when he dropped out at seventeen to work full time. He took to working the road shows with a bigger stable. He found a second family with the trainers and hands that came along and life got a little easier. He still sent most of his pay checks home to his mom and even started trying to play the man of the family by putting away some money for his sister if she ever got to go to college. They still talked a couple times a week no matter where he was.

But this new family had problems and the drinks had a habit of flowing and one had a habit of gambling too much away. One night Eliot was heading back for the trailers after checking in on the horses when someone grabbed him from behind. "Hey little brother." Was all he said. Later Eliot would figure out that their gambler had taken from a loan shark and when he couldn't pay back tricked him into believing Eliot was his darling little brother so they'd go after him instead.

But Eliot had come a long way from that little boy. He was small but he was tough and he'd been waiting for a rematch for a long time. He was outnumbered and out mussled but he put up a hell of a fight. Afterwards the leader of the little crew paid to rough him up hung around, impressed. It was an odd start of a friendship but after the miscommunication was resolved and Henry helped him get a little payback on his so called friend they made amends. Henry even offered him a job.

Eliot hated to give up horses but the new pay was more than double. He had his family to think about and Eliot's trust had been badly shaken. Henry promised nothing except that if Eliot strung along with him and learned the business Eliot would never have to worry about money. He said Eliot had potential to be one of the greats all he needed was practice.

So he'd practice. He "practiced" his sister's way through her first two years of college.

The third time was the reason he left Henry. He'd become the man's best fighter but his head was getting soft and he was trapped. He was a big fish in a little pond and he was getting comfortable. He trusted too much, talked too much, relaxed in the knowledge there was no one in their sleepy little corner of Oklahoma that stood half a chance against him.

He was taken by surprise. He'd drunk himself stone cold on the night of his twenty-first birthday and was sleeping it off in his flat when someone broke in. Well, seven someones broke in.

They'd taken him down before he'd even fully woken up and tied him to a chair before he fully understood his plight. They'd waited for him to sober up a little, knocking his face around every so often until he could speak with only mild slurs. They'd asked him where his money was. They said they knew he saved most of his cuts so he had to have it all stashed somewhere and they weren't going to kill him until they'd added to their profit margin.

When he'd made a crack about that not being incentive to tell them they'd introduced him to the painful end of a cattle prod.

It was Eliot's first experience with torture and he was only thankful his tormentors were as green at it as he was. He hadn't understood at first, why they thought he had all this money but when he did he thanked god he'd been so paranoid at first he'd habitually never told his co-workers about his sister or mother. He was being betrayed and it was that money keeping him alive.

It wasn't a constant thing, and his mind quickly prompted him to exaggerate the damage to buy more time. No one was saving him so he'd have to improvise. How exactly he'd broken free he wasn't sure and none of the guys had been alive to explain later.

He left town that night. He'd never work with someone again, he promised himself, and he'd Never get that drunk again.

The forth time was when he was twenty six, a big leaguer and making a name for himself. He'd criss crossed the country more than a dozen times, always ending up stumbling back into his old hometown. His mother had died a month after Eliot cut ties with Henry. At the funeral he reconnected with his father's old friend Will and pretty little Ammie. He was still hurting and had gone back to working with horses for awhile, happy to have that safety back and a woman to comfort him the loving way. He always left, never knew why he couldn't stay still anymore.

But with the big league came big enemies and he bit off more than he could chew with that damn monkey. Three months in a dirt cell with Professionals doing their best might have broken him if he'd known where the blasted creature was. All he knew was the driving need to get out had turned those three month into a crash course in nearly every branch of the thieving trade he'd punched his way through before. He picked up slight of hand, lock picking, sneaking, and polished his combat with round after round with guards. The price of failure to learn was agonizing. He didn't have scars to bear but the nightmares that haunted him to the present were a reminder enough.

His first con he ever pulled off was his own escape. It involved picking pockets, three lock picks, eighteen guards taken out, and grafting his way past plenty more. He'd gone in a thug but came out a thief. It wasn't until he got back on his feet and started looking for work again that he realized the doors "Boot camp", as he grimly nicknamed his captivity, had opened for him. Retrieval specialists were thieves that specialized in combat. They were paid more, respected more, and the jobs tended to be more interesting than "beat this person up". He was more than happy to make the jump and somehow that nagging bit of his conscious finally shut up. He still was hurting people but it was different.

The fifth time wasn't long after his first encounter with Nate, though it'd be a few more years before they worked together. Eliot was making waves, getting to the point where he was considered one of the best in the business. Or course that meant people in the know started to learn his name and people in the know were sometimes crazies.

It had been a good reminder not to get cocky. It took them nineteen guys to do it right but they took him down after a Job. There was some loony there, someone Eliot had never met and hoped to god his fists would get too know very well someday. He didn't give a name or explanation just that Eliot seemed a lucky man and should test his luck.

Eliot hated guns for a lot of reasons but a night of Russian Roulette had taken any possible feeling besides loathing he might have had for them away. He still isn't sure if he was that lucky, or maybe the psycho had all blanks and was messing with Eliot. Maybe it was some weirdass retrievalist hazing to make death something less scary by way of constant exposure to it's likelihood.

But twelve hours of that "game" and others passed before the psycho pistol whipped him unconscious and he woke up in a paid suite in a five star hotel. He hadn't stuck around to enjoy it. He'd left, disappeared, and hopped never to run into that psycho again unless it was for some major payback.

Eliot had grown used to saving himself, or just surviving whatever hell he was forced into this time around. It was part of the territory and you learned to live and fight and not go down. That was the key really, not to go down.

But there always is someone better and there is only so much you can do. When the job goes south and the team is threatened and they've got fifteen competent guys chasing them and no way in hell everyone's getting away Eliot makes the play everyone knew he'd make. He's the specialist after all. If anyone can survive and escape from captivity it's him.

He blocks the door in front of him, hearing everyone screaming his name over the coms on the other side even though they all know it one or all. He shouts for them to get out and to hurry up. He can't hold them forever.

He takes out seven guys before they take him down.

He wakes up, stretched out on a steel table with iron cuff and knows he's not getting out of this one. He closes his eyes and lies still, conserving his energy for what's to come. He still has his exit strategy, the very well hidden and crafted cyanide cap on a back molar for situations like this should he really not have a way out but he resigns himself to wait and endure, not addressing why in his head. He saves his own butt and unless these people get careless he's not going to stand a chance saving his own.

He should be more surprised than he is four days later, when he groans painfully into consciousness only to find himself laid out on a couch in the office, a soft blanket wrapped around him. He blinks up, trying to focus his eyes as someone helps him sit up and tries to get him to drink something. He couldn't remember escaping, and he was pretty sure he wasn't in any condition to have done so. "You saved me?" He asks, his words coming out a croak and slurring together. He winces and drinks the water Sophie's trying to give him.

Nate's "Yeah." In the awkward silence was all the answer he got.

"Thanks." He closed his stinging eyes, the last four days left him too drained for anything more. Later he'd be able to work out how this all felt and what it meant and all the brain stuff he needed some heavy labor to burn through, right now he'd just be glad that just maybe he wouldn't always have to save himself from now on.


End file.
